MOM STOP: Potty training boys is harder than it seems

Saturday

Jan 25, 2014 at 11:00 PM

When my 2-year-old son woke up one recent morning, I opened his bedroom door and discovered an awful smell.

By Lydia Seabol AvantStaff Writer | The Tuscaloosa News

When my 2-year-old son woke up one recent morning, I opened his bedroom door and discovered an awful smell. If you are a parent, you probably know the myriad of odors that can come with raising a young child. It’s not just the stinky diapers. It’s the random, half rotten-banana stuck under the couch or the solidified, two-week old bottle of milk hidden under the bed. It’s the sliced strawberry, squished by a certain toddler’s hand, then placed in the silverware drawer in the kitchen like that’s where it belonged. Then there’s the dirty diaper, accidentally left in the car and forgotten after an on-the-road change, bringing a torrid payback for days afterward. And so, when I opened my son’s bedroom door, I started a mental checklist, trying to deduce where the smell could be coming from. I couldn’t find any used diapers, no cups of milk forgotten. It was only until I started to dress him for the day that I realized why — I unzipped his fleece footie pajamas, but there was no diaper.My son reeked. I called my husband since he was the one who had put our son down to sleep the night before.“Did you remember to put a diaper on him?” I asked. There was a moment of silence. “Of course,” he replied, a little exasperated as why I would think he’d forget. I then looked at my proud 21⁄2-year-old, who I now was giving a bath because he smelled so bad. “What happened to your diaper?” I asked him. “I flush!” he said excitedly. Sure enough, my son awoke in the middle of the night, took off his diaper and threw it away, then apparently put his footie pajamas back on, zipped them up and went back to bed, without a diaper. Only, he’s not really potty trained yet — hence the smell. As much as we are trying to potty train our toddler, it hasn’t quite sunk in yet with him. He loves sitting on the toilet and flushing afterward, but usually only tells us that he needs to “flush” after the deed has been done and there’s a diaper to be changed. When it comes to potty training, we’re a bit dumbfounded. People say raising boys and girls is so different, but I don’t think I realized that until I had our son. This is not our first time potty training a child; it should not be this difficult. Our daughter practically trained herself. Only a couple weeks after her second birthday, we were living in a hotel after the tornado damaged our home on April 27, 2011. The hotel bathroom was easily accessible, and she just decided she was done with diapers. By the time she started her “twos” class at preschool, she was one of the youngest in the class, but she was one of the first to be completely potty trained. And so, when it comes to our son, I’m stuck. For now, we are going to keep going with the repeated trips to the potty, reading him board books about the potty and hoping that the order of things sinks in. But until then, I might just resort to safety pins on pajamas at night. If anyone has tips on potty training boys, we certainly need them.